Stop the Rain
by Tara Laurel
Summary: "John Watson never really liked the was raining when his father had left him as a child. Pouring when the cancer finally stole his mother from him. Depressingly drizzling when he woke up in hospital after being shot. And now, here he was, face first in a pile of mud and Lord knows what else, and it was sodding raining. Oh, and there was a knife in his back."
1. Coming Down

**TITLE: Stop the Rain**

**CHAPTER/TITLE: **Chapter One/ Coming Down

**RATING: **T (language, content)

**A/N: **It was storming today and suddenly I was struck with a ton of rainy/stormy weather fic ideas! It was actually difficult to decide which to choose! I may have to do some alternate versions and write some of my other scenarios. We shall see.

There is a line in here John says that is from the unaired pilot. I loved it so much and was sad it wasn't kept in A Study in Pink.

This is a first meeting AU. I'm not quite sure I got the characterization exactly right in this story...let me know

_Please read and review. Many thanks._

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own Sherlock.

**Chapter One: Coming Down**

**_Long as I remember The rain been coming down.  
Clouds of myst'ry pouring Confusion on the ground.  
Good men through the ages, Trying to find the sun;  
And I wonder, Still I wonder, Who'll stop the rain._**

**_Who'll Stop the Rain - CCR_**

John Watson never really liked the rain.

It was raining when his father had left him as a child.

Pouring buckets when the cancer finally succeeded in stealing his mother from him.

Depressingly drizzling when he woke up in hospital after being shot.

Storming the day he was released.

The first time he considered ending his life there had been a flood.

And now, here he was, face first in a pile of mud and Lord knows what else, and it was _sodding raining_.

Oh, and there was a knife in his back.

No, not figuratively. Quite literally, actually.

It was a very different feeling than being shot. The former soldier had honestly not noticed it at first. He assumed the assailant had only nicked him.

A year earlier and Captain John Watson would have been able to take the man down without breaking a single sweat. Now, though civilian John Watson had only been out of hospital one week. His shoulder was still healing and his limp – which was _not _psychosomatic or whatever his therapist called it, thank you very much – constantly cried out "target". It certainly didn't help matters that the coward had attacked from behind.

John had been out walking. Just walking. No reason, if only to escape his lifeless flat and the nightmares – which he would never admit to having or avoiding. John had never been wary strolling the streets of London after dusk before. He had just returned from a war zone. An evening in the city should have been calm, even dull, in comparison.

And yet, as his cliched fate would have it, halfway home, the darkened skies had somehow blackened further. There was a single crack of thunder, and within seconds, sheets of water were upon him. There had been no rain in the forecast and John was almost convinced that the weather only turned because he had sit foot outside.

His clothes were already soaked through when the man approached him. If not for the curtains of rain and his internal grumblings, John might have seen or heard his attacker. What he heard instead was his own groaning as something pierced the skin of his back. Instincts flaring to the surface, John spun on his heel and readily sent a fist into the stranger's face.

He wasn't really sure why he was stumbling sideways, but before John could think on it further, his attacker landed a punch of his own. John felt his lip split open and and then another solid force against the side of his skull. Whether it was a first or a weapon, John didn't have time to check. With practiced maneuvers, the former military man swooped a leg underneath the stranger while seizing the man's swinging arm.

The attacker was still flailing even while on his back. Rolling his eyes, John promptly aimed for the man's head, successfully rendering him unconscious.

John's breathing was far too labored from such a simple scrap and his vision kept skewing. He wondered vaguely if this was some new symptom of his PTSD. But then he thought again. His head had been remarkably clear during the brawl. With the adrenaline ripping through his veins, John hadn't felt that alive since the battlefield. This wasn't PTSD. This was something else entirely.

Something definitely _not good_.

But before the doctor could make a proper diagnosis, John's world tilted, and then so did he.

* * *

"Lestrade - yes - right where I told you he'd be tonight, of course. Yes - I am alone. No, I didn't need the help of your idiot - hm, victim? Same as the others. Stab wound - male - oh - _oh_. Breathing. Hm. Alive. Interesting. Yes, Lestrade. An ambulance, unless you really have that much faith in me to keep a fatally injured man from dying."

_Fatally injured._

_Dying._

Someone was hurt.

John needed to tell the voice. He was a doctor. He could help. He could save him.

And yet, when he tried to speak, what instead came out was something that sounded like a strangled moan.

"Good. Finally." The voice seemed more annoyed than relieved. "I believe this is the part where I ask you if you know your name.

"Wha -"

"Your name. Quickly, now."

"Uh - John. John Watson."

"Alright. You're a doctor. Tell me what to do."

"Mmm?"

It wasn't John's most intellligent response, but apparently it was all he could currently muster.

"Oh, come now. Former Army man. Previously wounded in action. I do hope your stronger and smarter than what your presently showing."

If John had been confused before, well, he was absolutely clueless now.

"Who - how - how do you know - what happ -"

"Honestly, you're merely wasting time. Yours, in fact. But, if you insist. You were attacked by one of London's most boring and cowardly serial killers. Stabs his victims in the back, steals their wallet or purse. Always chooses targets that appear weak. Your appearances, though, are certainly deceiving, aren't they? I deduced he was homeless, stealing to survive, not to take trophies of his kills. He has been mugging for a long time, but it was only recently that he started stabbing and killing his victims. First one was two weeks ago. Very sloppy. His first kill. An accident, probably. Someone fought back. Except, he found that he _liked _it. He was still a coward, though, hence stabbing in the back. He could've just knocked them unconscious first, but people don't tend to _think_."

The speed at which the stranger spouted his sentences made it difficult for John's sluggish mind to keep up.

"You, though, apparently are at least minimally above the average mind, as you fought the attacker, even in your current state, what after the injury in Afghanistan or Iraq."

"You keep saying - how do you know -"

"No more questions until you instruct me on what to do to save your life," the man spoke almost conversationally. "If he used the same knife as with the other victims, which, by judging bu the handle and his intelligence, is quite probable, the blade is four inches long. I'd guess you've lost about one liter of blood so far. No reason for your previous unconscious state until further blood loss, so I'd wager that blow to your head was fairly decent. So, doctor, are you going to start shouting orders like most doctors do, or are you doing to lay here and die?"

"Right, right," John cleared his throat. "Keep pressure around the knife. Do _not _take it out. I'll just bleed to death faster."

"That's it?" John's ego dented a bit at the skepticism.

"Unless you're a surgeon or I can somehow see out of the back of my skull, then, yes, that's it. Until the medics get here. Sorry to disappoint you." John paused and cringed. "How did you know about me?"

"I didn't know, I _observed._" The man rolled his eyes. "When I first came upon the scene, I noticed how you had taken down the murderer. Efficient, and yet minimal damage to opponent. So, trained in combat, but still cares enough not to do any real damage. Your haircut and tan line say military. Your care says doctor. Surgeon, apparently, by your previous comment."

John's jaw was probably unhinging just a bit, but the man pressed forward.

"The cane was a dead give away for the injured bit, but your leg is actually perfectly fine. How else would you have executed such a take down maneuver on our unconscious friend over there? Not to mention how you have winced in pain upon movement of your upper body, but you have moved your leg several times without so much as a flinch. Besides, when you first came to, you grabbed for your shoulder, not your leg or back. Just been attacked, disoriented, probably flashing back momentarily to the injury you sustained overseas."

"That - That is amazing." John shook his head.

"It - what? Really?"

"Yes. Of course. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

"That's not what people normally say."

"What do you people normally say?"

"Piss off."

John chuckled but then cringed, instinctively reached toward the origin of the pain. His fingertips just grazed the handle of the knife before he pulled his arm back.

"Welcome home," The man jested.

"Yeah," John sighed. "Been a real bloody good time back. Rather be at war."

"Indeed," the man smiled. "And not just because of this incident. Your leg. Your therapy. Your career. Your brother."

"Brother?" John blinked.

"Used your mobile to phone the ambulance. Mine was dead. Engraved to a Harry Watson from Clara. Brother just finishing up a divorce I assume. This model is not even six months old and he just gave it to you? If she had broken up with him, he would've kept it. People do. _Sentiment. _No. He wanted rid of it. Now, how do I know that you're not Harry? Well, just look at the state of it, really. Nicks and scratches. Man before me would'nt treat a luxury item like that when he has so few, or none. That indicated a previous owner. So, your brother."

"That's - incredible," John sputtered.

"Did I get anything wrong?"

"Harry and Clara are splitting up," John nodded, though his face momentarily twisted in pain. "But _Harry _is short for _Harriet_."

"Ah," the man grunted. "_Sister_. There's always something."

Again, John's face contorted.

"Damn it," he ground out. "Where's the bloody ambulance?"

"Average response time is eight minutes, but, with this storm, I'd say they're delayed."

"The storm, right," John said bitterly. "If being stabbed isn't brilliant enough, it has to happen in the middle of a freezing rain storm."

The stranger suddenly began removing his large dark coat, draping it over John. It wasn't until that moment that John realized he was shivering, and that the man was half cradling him in his arms.

"So - what were you doing, anyway? Are you with the police?"

"More like they're with me," he smirked smugly. "I'm a consulting detective. The first and only. I invented the job."

"Well, I can certainly see why," John mused.

Before either could continue the conversation, a dark shape formed over the taller man's kneeling body. John saw the sudden movement quickly made one of his own. Bending his arm back, he seized the handle of the knife and ripped the blade from his flesh. With a shout of both anger and agony, John leaned closer, as if in an awkward embrace with the detective and thrust the knife into the shadow.

The darkened figure cried out just before crumpling to the ground. The consulting detective snapped his head around just in time to see the murderer's grip slacken on a small blade.

"Guess he wasn't so stupid," John gasped. "Had a second knife. Was about to stick you with it."

"I see you went for the kill strike this time," the curly haired man replied, with only the faintest tremor in his voice, though the flicker of fear was also accompanied by a spark of what John was almost sure was surprised pride.

John didn't respond though, save for a small hiss, followed by a profound groan. He slowly fell back on his side, still in the stranger's arms.

"Speaking of stupid," the detective continued, now turning his attention to the sudden flow of crimson liquid pouring from John's back.

"Better than both of us lying here dying," the doctor managed to shrug halfheartedly.

"You mean, better you, than me," the observant man furrowed his brow, the clicking together of gears in his brain reflecting his his penetrating gaze. "You want to die."

"Not exactly," John shook his head. "Well, not anymore. Just not that, I don't know, against it, I guess. What the bloody hell good am I now anyway? Army doctor who can't be in Army or be a doctor. Don't fancy desk work for the rest of my life. And I don't care to sit in therapy once a week for some stranger to tell me what I already know."

"And you have no one," the man added, nodding.

"Well, yeah," John snorted, one part pathetic, one part sarcastic. "Thanks for that. Should I ask how you knew that one?"

"We already discussed your sister. You're dying, and yet you haven't once asked me to or tried to phone anyone. Not to mention your living situation. One bedroom flat, this part of the city? All you can afford on an Army pension these days. But you're a soldier. A war hero. Surely someone would take you in. So, either you have no family or friends close by physically, or none that you are close enough with to ask or that would offer. You don't want to be a burden and don't want to admit you need help, but there's more to it than that. Doctor tells me you lost someone close, probably a parent, considering your sister's obvious alcoholism. Army says you wanted to help people, but also get away from London for a time. You love the city, otherwise you'd have left for somewhere cheaper by now. So it was a tragedy that drove you away."

"I'm beginning to think you know more about me than my therapist." John chuckled through a cough.

"Oh, probably. And more I haven't said." The man smirked.

"Like what?" John questioned but then grimaced.

A silence settled over the two for a long moment.

"Are you alright?"

"I thought you were clever," John winced. "I'm dying, remember?"

"I didn't mean - you have just killed a man."

John met the stranger's serious gaze and then bowed his head.

"I've seen men die before - and good men, friends of mine. I thought I'd never sleep again." He paused and brought his eyes up to lock with the other man's. "I'll sleep fine tonight." John nodded and then smiled crookedly. "If I don't die first. Besides, he wasn't a very good man, was he?"

The detective was about to respond when John shifted and swore. He pressed his eyes closed in pain and suddenly fought it difficult to reopen them. His eyelids had been growing heavier and now all his mind could do was imagine how nice it would be just to rest for a moment. Just a moment.

"John? John? Stay awake. You're a doctor. You know not to fall asleep now."

John didn't reply. In fact, he didn't even move.


	2. To Find the Sun

**TITLE: Stop the Rain**

**CHAPTER/TITLE: **Chapter Two/ To Find the Sun

**RATING: **T (language, content)

**A/N: Maybe you can all forgive me for not updating my other stories yet with this fic! This is part two of the short little story I just thought of. The next chapter is more of an epilogue.**

_Please read and review. Many thanks._

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own Sherlock.

**Chapter Two: To Find the Sun**

When John failed to rouse, the detective resorted to lightly slapping the doctor's cheeks. Glancing around, the detective did the one thing he could think to do. The same thing Lestrade had done when the consulting detective had long ago overdosed.

Making a fist, the man placed his knuckles against John's sternum. He wasn't quite sure exactly what he was doing, merely relying on his own sense memory. And he certainly wasn't in his right senses at the time. Applying firm pressure, he began rubbing up and down, continually commanding the former soldier to wake.

John winced and groaned, his eyelids fluttering futilely.

"John, wake up. I am a detective. I solve crimes. Murders. You are the doctor. You are the one that saves the lives. I've seen the dead. Violent deaths. Just bodies. Puzzles. I've never - I have not seen someone - die. Besides, you, John, are quite the puzzle. I've deduced almost everything about you, and yet -" the man stopped himself. "Dying is so dull, John. Well, sometimes it isn't. The actual dying part. But I've seen death, just like you. The murder is the puzzle. Not the death. Death is dull, boring, endless. Now life, life can be incredibly dull. But it can be interesting. You - you're quite like me. You want danger. Excitement. No desk job, hm? See, giving up, _that's _boring. Predictable. Fighting, well, fighting is exciting. Fighting to live. I almost gave up once." He paused, taking a measured breath. "I don't - I don't do _this _well. _Sentiment. _But - John, you're a soldier. It's time you started acting like one. You need to fight. You said you didn't care if you died, you _need _to care, John. You need to care and fight and live."

Sherlock was running out of sentimental and encouraging things to say.

John was dying.

This stranger that he had just met was slipping right through his fingers, John's blood literally seeping through his hand.

And the detective felt - he wasn't quite sure what he felt.

He did not know this man, and yet, there was something there. Something the genius couldn't observe, couldn't deduce.

It was infuriating.

John was infuriating.

The former soldier had saved his life without a moment's hesitation.

Before he could think on it further, the body below him stirred.

"John?"

"Stop," John croaked, his eyes still closed. "Stop."

"Stop what?" Sherlock prodded curiously.

"The rain," John pleaded, his voice cracked and disoriented. "Stop the rain, please."

It was an illogical request, the detective thought as he glanced at the pouring sky. He was about to tell John as much when the doctor once more stilled.

This was an eerie stillness, though. A stillness the consultant recognized from crime scenes. Definitely not panicking, he placed his fingers, maybe a tad forcibly, against John's silent pulse.

"John!"

The detective flew into a flurry of action then. Quickly setting John against the pavement, he brought his own hands against the soldier's chest. He had only ever observed others perform this routine before, but now the responsibility fell to him. For the first time, he had to save the life, instead of solving the murder.

And that thought certainly, definitely, didn't frighten him.

* * *

When John woke up in a hospital bed a day later, there was no one there waiting for him.

And it was raining.

His sister was probably sleeping off the night before as it was the weekend and hadn't checked her phone. And for some odd reason, John had been half hoping to find a pale lanky form with protruding cheekbones waiting at his bedside.

Instead, John found only a single white business car. It wasn't even on a table. It was in his own hand. Someone had put the piece of paper there while he was sleeping. The absurdity of that lead him to a single guess.

He only needed to read it to confirm his suspicion and answer the who and why.

_Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective._

A mobile number and website address were listed below the name. Shaking his head with a soft chuckle of bemusement, John absentmindedly flipped the card over.

_The address is 221B Baker Street. _

_Come when released._

And when John Watson made his way out of the hospital and hailed a cab to Baker Street, he looked up at the rain, and smiled.


	3. Epilogue

**TITLE: Stop the Rain**

**CHAPTER/TITLE: **Epilogue

**RATING: **T (language, content)

**A/N: Who doesn't like a good epilogue? **

_Please read and review. Many thanks._

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own Sherlock.

**Epilogue**

_**Still the rain kept pouring, Falling on my ears.  
And I wonder, Still I wonder Who'll stop the rain.**_

"Right after I got shot," John cleared his stubborn throat, "I thought I was going to die. I could feel myself - well - I was close. Last thing I said before I passed out was 'Please God, let me live'. And, damn it, I meant it. I didn't want to die. But then I didn't And - and I was almost mad at myself for asking, because what sort of bloody life did I have left to live? Then I got stabbed and we met. 'Course we meet in a dark alley behind a sodding skip next to a murderer's body with me bleeding to death. You can't just meet Sherlock Holmes under ordinary circumstances. Because Sherlock Holmes wasn't ordinary. You saved my life, in so many ways, that night. Somehow I knew my life would never be ordinary again. And that okay. That was good. And I heard you, too. The self-proclaimed sociopath. You told me to fight, to live. So, I asked again. I screamed it out in my head. 'Please God, let me live.' And I did live. Not just survived. When I was with you, I _lived_."

John sniffed and straightened.

"There, that's it," he nodded shortly. "That's all I wanted to say. Any more and you'd get bored and probably still find a way to tune me out."

The former soldier stole a deep breath.

"Thank you."

Placing a lingering hand on the coffin, John Watson gripped his cane, offered the box a salute, and then slowly shuffled from the room. This time, there was no psychosomatic limp. This was merely dull old age.

John had been asked to give a eulogy at the funeral. He had stubbornly refused, but still felt inclined to write one in private. He had tried going back and reading his blog entries from all those years ago, but simply regurgitating past events didn't seem right. And Sherlock would have rolled his eyes at the sentiment and dullness of it all. So, in the end, John had just allowed himself to sit down in his old armchair, and just write the first thing that came to his mind. Or, well, his heart.

It was rather contradictory, speaking from the heart using prepared words. But that was how John was.

His memory crawled back to that day John had stood at Sherlock's grave.

_"You were the best man, the most human...human being that I've ever known."_

He had rehearsed those words in his mind again and again. And even then, John almost hadn't been able to bring himself to say them aloud. Once again, this time Sherlock and John weren't granted a proper goodbye. Old age hadn't claimed the former consulting detective. Something so mundane never would. Sherlock had left the world in a flare of fury and excitement, and neither men wouldn't have had it any differently, save for John maybe being at his side and going with him.

Staring down at his new cane, John thought of his old one. Of Sherlock's "curing" his limp. Of the two of them chasing down criminals and teasing Mycroft. Of Sherlock's sometimes beautiful, sometimes awful, music.

Of the song Sherlock had composed and played at his wedding, and at Mary's funeral. How it had poured and poured that day, the sky crying right alongside John. But that time when John was in the rain, Sherlock was beside him.

It was storming when Mrs. Hudson had her heart attack.

And when Harriet got in that car accident.

Sherlock hadn't stopped the rain, but at least John no longer found himself alone underneath it.

Well, not until now.

But, then, John would never truly be alone again, not really. Sherlock and John had become a part of one another. As long as John was still living then, so was Sherlock.

So as John stepped outside of the church and into the rain, he smiled.


End file.
